


You, beloved, who are all the gardens I have ever gazed at

by lafiametta



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: (Eventually) Requited Lust, And Some Feelings Too, M/M, Repressed Victorians, Set Between Episode 1 and Episode 2, Unauthorized Use of the Captain's Storeroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 11:11:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16136030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafiametta/pseuds/lafiametta
Summary: Thomas is always busy – assisting the captain when he rises, polishing boots, mending clothing, laundering shirts and bedclothes, fetching tea, serving at table, tidying the great cabin – and when he is not doing these things, he is thinking about doing these things, his mind a never-ending list of tasks that must be completed before they can all be done again the next day. His thoughts are so full that he barely has a moment to take note of the lieutenant, until one day he does.





	You, beloved, who are all the gardens I have ever gazed at

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onstraysod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/gifts).



> My small contribution to the Jopson/Little ship. The title is borrowed from Rainer Maria Rilke. Enjoy!

It takes some time before Thomas notices the way the lieutenant is watching him.

It is after Beechey, after that September morning when they woke to find themselves fully frozen into the ice, during that long and terrible winter that they fill with ceaseless activities, meant to keep them alive, yes, but also to distract them from the stark reality of their situation.

Thomas is always busy – assisting the captain when he rises, polishing boots, mending clothing, laundering shirts and linens, fetching tea, serving at table, tidying the great cabin – and when he is not doing these things, he is thinking about doing these things, his mind a never-ending list of tasks that must be completed before they can all be done again the next day. His thoughts are so full that he barely has a moment to take note of the lieutenant, until one day he does.

Lieutenant Little is a proper officer, his coat always spotless, the part in his hair always spit-licked straight every morning. He follows orders, and he does not waste words. It is something of a surprise, then, for Thomas to look up from refilling the lieutenant’s glass and catch those dark, heavy-lidded eyes grazing along the line of Thomas’s throat. The lieutenant glances away, almost immediately, but there is no mistaking the hunger in his gaze. Thomas might have thought that the end of it, with some sheepish expression of embarrassment on the lieutenant’s part, followed by avoidance, but as the days pass, the quiet, furtive looks only continue, as if the lieutenant somehow cannot help himself. And now that Thomas has noticed it, it is nearly impossible not to keep noticing it.  

Thomas has had men look at him before. He has served in Her Majesty’s navy for many years, and is no stranger to men and their appetites. Without the possibility of female companionship, a few of them sought out rougher outlets for their desires, despite the harsh punishment meted out for such offenses. Even on shore he has been propositioned more than once, mostly by men so deep in their cups that he doubted they could perform the act at all. For he knows he is a pretty man, with his pale eyes and fair skin, his cheeks quick to pinken like a girl’s. He can’t stop men from thinking what they think, and from looking at him the way they sometimes do. He has always ignored it, turned a blind eye.

But for some reason, he does not entirely mind having the lieutenant look at him.

Perhaps because it is only looks, and nothing more. Beyond the basic requirements of his duties, the lieutenant has said nothing to him, has made no lascivious offer or suggestion, and has never once made any attempt on his person. The looks, though, are often more than enough, deep and piercing for all they are so brief, leading Thomas to sometimes wonder what sort of man the lieutenant really is, what kind of soul lies underneath that bootblack-shined façade. What does he see when he looks at Thomas? Is it only beauty that stirs him, or is it something else, a quality that Thomas himself cannot fully name?

Can Thomas really be blamed for wanting to know more?

He finds his mind more easily turns to distraction as he goes about his tasks each day – a hazard he can ill-afford – and at night, curled into the narrow confines of his bunk, he listens to the inhuman groan of the ice against the hull and wonders if the lieutenant is awake as well, or if he is dead asleep, like Thomas ought to be. Only three doors separate them, a fact he is somehow acutely aware of as he lies there in the dark, his body spent but his thoughts still restless.

The lieutenant is a handsome man, he will admit, with his sharp brows and full bottom lip, and when he laughs – which is not very often – his eyes squint and his cheeks grow round with it, giving him a youthful, rakish air. Maybe, Thomas thinks, once they are finally free of the ice, once they find their way through to the passage, he will be free to laugh a little more.

Like his head, Thomas’s heart seems beyond his control, for it soon begins to beat a touch faster each time he steps into the wardroom to serve at table, knowing the lieutenant will be there, anticipating the way his skin will prickle under the lieutenant’s tender scrutiny. He does his best to focus, to listen to the rhythms of the officers’ conversation, to watch for the slightest gesture that might indicate a need for more wine or spirits or an additional serving of the main course. He is still the captain’s steward, after all, and these are his duties to perform. Sometimes when Thomas circles the table, the lieutenant will signal for him to come and pour him another half glass; the proximity is enough to steal some of his breath away, even as he does his best to affect an outward mien of calm.

And so they spend the long and darkest days of winter, circling around each other in the absence of the sun, without words, without acknowledgement, speaking in the only language they allow themselves.

How long they might have continued in this way, Thomas will never know. But when the moment finally comes, it catches him by surprise, without recourse to plan or preparation.

It is early February and he has come down to the orlop to make an inventory of what still remains in the captain’s private storeroom, both victuals and spirits, for he likes to keep an eye on both, especially in the winter when they tend to rely so much on their stores. He is pushing a crate back into place when he hears the door slide open just behind him, and turns to see the lieutenant standing there, the wool-clad bulk of him crowding up the doorway. Perhaps he did not expect to see Thomas either, for he grows still and then swallows tightly, his throat bobbing with the effort.

They’ve never been alone like this before.

Coming to this simple realization does something strange to the air, turning it heavy and expectant, charging it with unspoken meaning.

“The captain sent me for more whiskey,” the lieutenant says, his voice slow, and a little rough. “He said he’d run out.”

That cannot possibly be true, for Thomas had left a full bottle in the bottom cabinet of the great cabin for just this purpose, but it’s also possible the captain didn’t bother to look for himself before sending someone to replenish his supply. Had Thomas been up above, he would have saved the lieutenant from such an errand, one ill-suited to his rank. But then, had that been the case, neither of them would be here, standing across from each other, openly taking each other’s measure in a way they had never quite dared to before.  

He should tell the lieutenant about the bottle upstairs. But he doesn’t.

“It’s just there, sir,” Thomas replies, jutting his chin towards a small wooden crate over to his right. “On the shelf.”

So many things happen at once: Thomas turns and takes a step towards the crate, the words “Here, sir, let me” falling in a rush from his lips, just as the lieutenant approaches from the opposite direction, and so they meet there, in the middle of the storeroom floor, close enough that they nearly collide. Thomas instinctively puts a hand out to steady himself, but pulls it back in time to avoid grazing the brushed wool of the lieutenant’s coat. He looks up, only to be met with a pair of searing, coal-dark eyes trained intently on him, as if they cannot bear to be anywhere else. The lieutenant’s lips part, just a little, and Thomas watches the subtle movement of his chest as it rises and falls with each shudder of his breath. The air in the storeroom seems far warmer now, strange for the fact that it felt so impossibly cold to Thomas only a minute or so before.

The moment stretches on, without either of them moving, and it is only then that Thomas realizes what he is seeing: there is a battle clearly raging within the lieutenant, a desperate struggle between giving in to his desire and retaining his self-control. Down along his side, the first few fingers of the lieutenant’s hand begin to tremble, and he curls them inward, making a fist.  

“Dear god,” the lieutenant finally murmurs, and without warning unleashes himself onto Thomas. Strong hands clasp around Thomas’s jaw, taking him firmly into their grasp, tugging him close, and then a mouth is pressing against his, hot and demanding in its entreaties.

He raises up his hands in a half-hearted gesture of protest, for it is obvious what he should do: pull away, make some excuse, find a way to convince the lieutenant that this never happened. No good can come of it, and there is the very real possibility of discovery and all of the inherent dangers that it brings.

And yet Thomas cannot find the will to resist. He wants this, he realizes; he wants nothing more than to be the object of such overpowering desire, strong enough that it has quickened his own, unfurling from deep within the lower reaches of his groin. All thoughts of risk fly from his mind, and he closes his eyes, his mouth slowly parting to the insistent urgings of the lieutenant’s lips. Seemingly of their own volition, his hands reach up and over the lieutenant’s wool-covered shoulders, and then begin to coil around his neck, bringing the two of them even closer.

The lieutenant shaved that morning, but enough hours have passed that Thomas can feel the sharp edge of stubble as it rasps against the delicate skin of his mouth. It feels strange, foreign, having roughness there instead of soft, but there is some pleasure in it, too, for all of its transgression. Thomas opens wider, letting himself be drawn into the lush depths of the lieutenant’s mouth, as he reaches to curl his hand into a sweep of soft dark hair. 

For a man who had always seemed so proper and coolly reserved, the lieutenant is surprisingly warm: not just his body, but his hands, the back of his neck, the slippery edge of his tongue as it slides against Thomas’s. Nor can Thomas deny the heat forming in his own body. He feels the flush of it on his chest and neck, radiating off his cheeks, pooling in his belly and along the length of his spine. His clothes now seem too tight and heavy, too confining. Even so, he can’t help himself from pressing more firmly against the lieutenant, chest to chest, thigh to thigh.

Thomas’s hands are grasping, looking for anything to fill them. They curl past the round bulk of the lieutenant’s shoulders, against his arms, the sides of his face where his whiskers grow the thickest. The urge to touch him is so overwhelming, a dark and needful thing.

The lieutenant turns to bury his face along the line of Thomas’s jaw, nosing aside his collar as lips and tongue quickly locate a sensitive spot just below his ear. A callused thumb slides up against Thomas’s mouth and he opens just enough to bite down on the tip of it, eliciting a muffled groan from the lieutenant and a sympathetic shudder through the whole of Thomas’s body.

Despite the thick fabric of their trousers, Thomas can feel the lieutenant growing hard against him, and he smiles faintly, for certainly the lieutenant cannot mistake the evidence of Thomas’s own response, pressing up against the edge of his hip. 

“Please,” Thomas whispers, without knowing entirely what he’s asking for. 

The lieutenant reaches down to palm the front of Thomas’s trousers, sending an immediate and incandescent jolt of pleasure directly through him. It is almost enough to make him cry out, but he possesses just enough instinct toward self-preservation to keep himself quiet. In recompense, he turns and finds the lieutenant’s mouth once more, parrying, nipping, urging, teasing him with teeth and tongue. So preoccupied are they that neither one notices that they have slowly migrated to the edge of the storeroom, until Thomas feels his back pressed up against the wall of shelves. With a wicked little grin set along the corner of his mouth, the lieutenant takes hold of him and turns him around, back to front, his mouth hot along the side of Thomas’s neck and his hands reaching down to take hold of him once more. It is all too much, the sensation, and Thomas arches back, thinking to contain it, thinking perhaps his heart will burst and he will perish on the spot. All that pales, however, once the lieutenant slips his fingers underneath the waistband of Thomas's trousers, flesh meeting flesh, everything in the world reduced to this one central axis, the singular intersection of desire and release, pleasure and pain, innocence and sin. 

He feels poised on a knife’s edge, on either side a wide abyss.

Behind him, the lieutenant’s hips are flush against him, his own need made clearly manifest. For a moment, Thomas closes his eyes and begins to imagine it, what it would be like to give his body over to the lieutenant, to allow himself to be possessed in that most primal of ways, and is surprised at how much the idea excites him. He himself has possessed women in such a way, taken his pleasure with them in the dark, and once had known a man, but never had he thought to play the woman’s part. He wonders if the lieutenant would be gentle with him, or if he would prefer it rough, although he doubts that a brief tumble in the storeroom would give them time enough to find out. 

Regardless, it is not an opportunity he plans to squander. 

He turns his head to catch the lieutenant’s eye – only momentarily distracted by the fresh color gracing his cheeks, the thick line of his lashes – and then juts his head in the direction of the half-open door just behind them, silently indicating that the lieutenant ought to fully close it. The lieutenant’s brows furrow slightly in confusion, until he finally seems to grasp the larger implications of what Thomas is asking of him, and then his dark eyes turn darker still. 

There is a small metal latch set within the wooden frame, which the lieutenant fastens as soon as he slides the door back into place, ensuring them the barest bit more privacy for what they are about to do. 

It is far too cold to fully undress, nor do they have the time. Perhaps one day, Thomas thinks, he will have the luxury of stripping away each article of the lieutenant's clothing, piece by piece, until all he will be left with is the man. Perhaps then they might truly see each other, exactly as they are, without need for pretense or modesty. But for now, they will make do with what they have.  

Thomas quickly unfastens the buttons of his trousers and then glances behind him to see the lieutenant has already pushed his own drawers off his hips. He steps closer, placing a hand on Thomas's waist, and then lifts up the other hand and spits twice into his palm before lowering it back down. Thomas reaches up to brace himself against the wall, as the hand along his waist tightens and the lieutenant leans over so he can press a single, fleeting kiss to the nape of Thomas's neck. 

There is nothing to separate them then, no barrier of the heart or the body. Soon enough, they are entirely lost to a frenzy of hands and hips and mouths, lost to everything, set adrift in a roiling sea, their only instinct to cling more desperately to each other as the waves crash over them one by one.

And when they finally succumb, sinking pleasurably into that dark oblivion, they perish together, with no thought in that moment to the world beyond themselves. 

**Author's Note:**

> So there's actually [a sequel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16817218) to this story!


End file.
